[Value of imaging in the management of advanced stage ovarian cancer "experience of 72 computed tomographic examinations"].
OBJECTIVE
To place computed tomography (CT) in the evaluation of advanced stages of ovarian tumors throughout two years experience (1991-1992) of a Cancer Medical Center.


METHODS
Study of 72 pelvic-abdominal CT examinations of 47 patients in stages III and IV, at the time of the initial diagnosis or during the treatment. The equipment used is a General Electric CE 10,000. The technique was conventional (digestive and intravenous opacification). These examinations were performed by practicing radiologists exclusively in cancerological units.


RESULTS
Carried out in immediate post-operative patients incompletely surgically examined, CT allows the quantification of residue and therefore a new staging in two-thirds of the cases. In the process of adjuvant chemotherapy, CT reveals the persistence of residue in 71% of the cases with therapy implications. At the time of follow-up, CT is revealing of abnormalities in 74% of the cases carried out to systematic content, in 60% of the cases with concomitant elevation of CA 125 level. Abnormalities are always present when CT is carried out from clinical symptoms and elevation of CA 125 level (3 cases in 3). Localized recurrence was only described in 7.6% of the cases.


CONCLUSIONS
CT is of relative usefulness for the assessment and surveillance of advanced stages of cancers. It contributes with accordance to the literature clarifying the criteria as "impossibility of resection" and according to our series, it contributes in redefining the stage; it participates, during the process of adjuvant therapy of avoiding the unuseful second-look procedures, without predicting "complete response"; finally it participates during the follow-up to the collection of the localized recurrence only situation susceptible to benefit from an efficient surgical treatment.
Martel
P
P
Centre Claudius Regaud, Toulouse.
Marty
M H
MH
Bonnet
F
F
Delannes
M
M
Gladieff
L
L
Mery
E
E
D018394:CA-125 Antigen / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000097:blood / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000601:surgery; D018579:Patient Selection; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000592:standards*
D018394:CA-125 Antigen
Apport de l'imagerie à la prise en charge des cancers de l'ovaire de stades avancés "à propos d'une expérience de 72 examens tomodensitométriques".